Queen Araweelo

Historical Distortions: The story of Queen Ebla Awad (Araweelo) is one of the most controversial in Somali society. Since almost all Somali stories are oral and not written, it is impossible to prove their authenticity. When these stories were first told, most Somalis were nomads who did not know how to write and read.
Many centuries after these stories were first reported; Somalis have become educated and are curious about the truth of these stories. Since Somalia is a male-dominated society, few women have had the opportunity for an education and to challenge the bias that has long existed against them. Therefore, Queen Araweelo’s story has been exaggerated by Somali men.

Queen Araweelo ruled Somalia around AD 15. The men who passed on her history called her a monster, who maimed and castrated men for no reason. Not one shred of evidence supports this claim. There are however, a few poorly written articles posted on the internet that try to repeat the same false assertions.

Fortunately, many Somali girls and women have become educated. Today, in Europe, America, Austria and even the Middle East, Somali girls out perform their male counterparts and many more women are in schools than men. These trends favor Somali women in all areas where Somali is spoken.

These educated women are challenging the status quo and questioning the legitimacy of what has been reported about Queen Ebla Awad and other famous Somali women. They are asking themselves who Queen Araweelo was, if she was real, how she came to power, and how she ruled. Many of these women like me are re-examining the unsubstantiated and biased stories that have been told about her.

There are also many elderly and wise women who dare to tell their versions of what they have heard about Queen Araweelo. These women who feared retribution for years are now coming forward to tell the world what they know about Somali women’s plight and the real story of Queen Araweelo.

The real story

According to some of the wise elders that we have interviewed, Queen Araweelo came to power around AD 15 after a long war between Somali clans. These feuds had claimed thousands of lives countless and more had died starvation. Some of the elderly women we have interviewed said that Ebla’s husband was killed few years after the clan warfare started. It was also reported that the only two children she had had died of starvation during the civil war.

During this period, it was taboo among Somali men to marry a widow. The only exception was a widow with living children could marry one of her late husband’s brothers. This practice was merely to keep the deceased man’s family together and make sure that his assets such as livestock wouldn’t pass to someone else. In that kind of arrangement, the woman was considered as part of her husband’s family property. Since Araweelo’s husband didn’t leave behind any children or livestock, she was no longer considered part of his family.

As a young and destitute woman, Araweelo walked away from her husband’s family which she had known since the age of 16, when she was married. She decided to go back to her own family. But after she went back to her family, she didn’t fit in and everybody shunned her. In nomadic Somali society, it was very rare for a widowed or divorced woman to return to her family. She is not considered useful, since she is not expected to bring or earn a dowry. No man would marry a widow.

When her own family rejected her, Araweelo became very depressed and decided to leave. She met with many other young women who were in a similar situation. They hunted together and lived in the wilderness for many years. As they lived in the jungle, they had to face aggression from Somali men who wanted to destroy their organization and their way of life.

During this difficult time, Araweelo showed great bravery and toughness when the women were attacked by Somali bandits; consequently, they chose her to be their leader.

When other women who lived in similar situations had heard about this group of women who banded together to protect themselves, they joined in droves. The number of women in the jungle community grew and became a force to be reckoned with. In later years, many minority groups who needed protection against larger clans also joined. Araweelo was eventually crowned as the Queen of Peace and Prosperity. The word spread to every corner of Somali territory and many women felt liberated.

After she was crowned, the Queen gathered her wise women and men and asked for their counsel. She told them that stopping the civil war was one of her first priorities. The conference produced a three-point plan: 1) to approach the fighting parties and offer them an impartial reconciliation, 2) if they refused, to give them a warning, and 3) if they still refused, to declare war on them. During the negotiations, the Queen started building a strong army.

Before the Queen’s army launched the war, she ordered the construction of a huge prison that could hold thousands of prisoners. This prison later became the home of many clan leaders who refused to accept the Queen’s peace proposition. This kind of scheme had never been heard of before, and because this was a society with no central government, Somalis has never seen such a huge building before.

When many men that were imprisoned did not come back to their families, many people wondered why the men had not been able to escape. Soon there were rumors about what had happened to them.

In Somali culture, a man’s testicles are everything. There are many myths that Somalis believe, such as “if man loses his testicles he cannot escape, think or help himself.” Since the prison was maximum security and no one was able to escape from it, many people were convinced that the men had to have been castrated. When the Queen heard these rumors, she was amused and encouraged her staff to spread the same rumor, in order to frighten her enemies. This rumor helped the Queen to prevent more bloodshed and discourage more young men from joining the feud between clans.

Conclusion

In all fairness, the Queen was tough on trouble makers, but at the end, she liberated thousands of Somalis from war, poverty and humiliation. She was a good woman, and she ruled her people with fairness and justice. Unfortunately, on her 40th birthday, a renegade warlord called Oday Biqay had her killed while she was attending the funeral of a revered elder woman.

After the tragic death of Queen Ebla Awad (Araweelo), the Somali clans started regrouping and rearming themselves and began to slaughter each other again. For centuries, even after the Queen’s death, Somali men continued to kill each other and inflict untold agony and suffering on their people. Regrettably, the Somali men had never appreciated what Queen Araweelo had done for her people, but instead they labeled her as man-hating lunatic.

Fortunately, there are enough educated Somali women capable to tell the true story of Queen Araweelo. It is also equally important that Somali women to take their place in history and liberate the Somali people one more time. We cannot watch our people; particularly women and children suffer, and die of starvation because of crazy men.

 W

ritten by Farah M. Mohamed

Somalian Art

Somalian Art

Somali art is the artistic culture of the Somali people, both historic and contemporary. These include artistic traditions in pottery, music, architecture, woodcarving and other genres. Somali art is characterized by its aniconism, partly as a result of the vestigial influence of the pre-Islamic mythology of the Somalis coupled with their ubiquitous Muslim beliefs. However, there have been cases in the past of artistic depictions representing living creatures such as the golden birdson the Mogadishan canopies, the ancient rock paintings in northern Somalia, and the plant decorations on religioustombs in southern Somalia, but these are considered rare. Instead, intricate patterns and geometric designs, bold colors and monumental architecture was the norm.

History

Ancient rock artdepicting a camel.

The oldest evidence of art in the Somali peninsula are pre-historic rock paintings. The rock art of Laas Geel are thought to be some of the best preserved in Africa, representing cows in ceremonial robes accompanied by humans. The necks of the cows are embellished with a kind of plastron, some of the cows are depicted as wearing decorative robes. The paintings not only show cows, but also a domesticated dogs, several paintings of canidae and agiraffe.

Aspects of ancient Somali styles of architecture and art can be seen in the various Somali civilizations that flourished under Islam, particularly during the Mogadishan Golden Age and the Empire of Ajuuraan period (especially in the domain of architecture). In the early modern and contemporary era, poetry and theatrical ventures shaped much of today's Somali artistic culture.

Carving

Carving, known in Somali as qoris, is a much respected profession in Somalia both in historic and modern times. Many wealthy urbanites in the medieval period regularly employed the finest wood and marble carvers in Somalia to work on their interiors and houses. The carvings on the mihrabs and pillars of ancient Somalimosques are some of the oldest on the continent. Artistic carving was considered the province of men similar to how the Somali textile industry was mainly a women's business. Amongst the nomads, carving, especially woodwork, was widespread and could be found on the most basic objects such as spoons, combs and bowls, but it also included more complex structures such as the portable nomadic house, the aqal. In the last several decades, traditional carving of windows, doors and furniture has taken a backseat to the introduction of workshops employing electrical machinery which deliver the same results in a far shorter time period.

Textile

The textile culture of Somalia is an ancient one, and the Somali textile center in Mogadishu was, from at least the 13th century to the late 19th century, considered to be one of the main textile hubs in the Indian Ocean. It competed with those of the Indians and later the Americans in domestic and foreign markets such as Egypt and Syria.

Metalwork

The goldsmiths and blacksmiths of the urban cities, though often shunned by the dominant nomadic culture for their occupation, fashioned the city-dwellers' traditional display of wealth and power through ornaments such as jewelry in the case of women, or the intricately designed Somali dagger (toraay) in the case of men.

Architecture

Almnara Tower, Somalia.

Somali architecture is a rich and diverse tradition of engineering and designing multiple different construction types such asstone cities, castles, citadels, fortresses, mosques, temples, aqueducts, lighthouses, towers and tombs during the ancient,medieval and early modern periods in Somalia, as well as the fusion of Somalo-Islamic architecture with Occidental designs incontemporary times.

In ancient Somalia, pyramidical structures known in Somali as taalo were a popular burial style, with hundreds of these drystonemonuments scattered around the country today. Houses were built of dressed stone similar to the ones in Ancient Egypt, and there are examples of courtyards and large stone walls such as the Wargaade Wall enclosing settlements.

The adoption of Islam in the early medieval era of Somalia's history brought Islamic architectural influences from Arabia andPersia, which stimulated a shift from drystone and other related materials in construction to coral stone, sundried bricks, and the widespread use of limestone in Somali architecture. Many of the new architectural designs such as mosques were built on the ruins of older structures, a practice that would continue over and over again throughout the following centuries.

Visual Art is not new to the Somali communities. Visual art namely paintings focus on rural landscapes,and colorful paintings of the cultural life. Some of the known visual artists display their skills through their presence on Somali web sites. Some artists like Dr Mohamed Buwe Osman, share their works of art through their own art web pages. To view some of his sample works visithttp://wwww.osmanart.net/

References

1. Jump up^ The Journal of African Archeology Volume 1.2 (2003) Chapter 3
2. Jump up^ Culture and customs of Somalia By Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi pg 97
3. Jump up^ Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi(2001) pg 100
4. Jump up^ Man, God and Civilization pg 216
5. Jump up^ Diriye, p.102
6. wikipedia

Waris Dirie

Waris Dirie (Somali: Waris Diiriye, Arabic: واريس ديري) (born in 1965) is a Somali model, author, actress and social activist. From 1997 to 2003, she served as a UN Special Ambassador.

Early years

Waris was born into a nomadic family in 1965 in Galkayo, Somalia. At the age of thirteen, she fled to Mogadishu in order to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man. There, she briefly lived with an older sister and her family. Waris along with a few relatives later moved to London, where she resided with and worked for an uncle who had been appointed Somali ambassador. When his term in office ended, Waris remained in the city and held a job at a localMcDonald's. She also began evening classes to learn English.

Career

By chance, Waris was discovered by photographer Terence Donovan, who helped secure for her the cover of the 1987Pirelli Calendar. From there, her modeling career took off, appearing in advertisements for top designers such asChanel, Levi's, L'Oréal and Revlon.

In 1987, Waris played a minor role in the James Bond movie The Living Daylights. She also appeared on the runways of London, Milan, Paris and New York City, and in fashion magazines such as Elle, Glamour and Vogue. This was followed in 1995 by a BBC documentary entitled A Nomad in New York about her modeling career.

In 1997, at the height of her modeling career, Waris spoke for the first time with Laura Ziv of the women's magazine Marie Claire about the female circumcision that she had undergone as a child, at the age of three along with her two sisters. That same year, Waris became a UN ambassador for the abolition of FGM. She later paid her mother a visit in her native Somalia.

In 1998, Waris authored her first book, Desert Flower, an autobiography that went on to become an international bestseller. She later released other successful books including Desert Dawn, Letter To My Mother, and Desert Children, the latter of which was launched in tandem with a European campaign against FGM.

In 2009, a feature-length film based on Waris' book Desert Flower was released, with the Ethiopian supermodel Liya Kebede playing her.The movie has so far been released in 20 countries including France, Spain, Israel, Greece, Poland and Brazil. In January 2010, it won the Bavarian Film Awards in Munich in the "Best Movie" category. It was also nominated for a Film Award in Gold in the "Outstanding Feature Film" category at the German Film Awards, and won the Audience Award in the "Best European Film" category at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.

In 2010, Waris was appointed Peace Ambassador for the Year of Peace and Security by the African Union.

Attack and disappearance

In March 2004, Waris was attacked in her home in Vienna, Austria. Paulo Augusto, a 26-year-old Portuguese man, was held in custody after having apparently stalked her some 1,000 miles across Europe, eventually gaining access to her apartment by climbing through a neighbour's window. "She was so frightened and in shock that she let him in," a police spokesman said. Dirie apparently suffered minor injuries when her assailant threw her to the floor. The attacker then left in a taxi, only to return later on foot to smash one of the building's ground-floor windows. He was arrested when neighbours called the police, and was later given a five month suspended sentence by an Austrian court. It was reported that the suspect had met Dirie six months earlier when his brother was working at her previous residence in Wales. He later broke into that home and stole items of her clothing.

In another incident, during the early hours of Wednesday, March 5, 2008, Waris went missing for three days while staying in Brussels, Belgium. She was found alive on Friday, March 7, 2008, by a Brussels policeman.

Personal life

Contrary to popular belief, Waris is not related to fellow Somali model Iman. In her book Desert Flower, Waris states that Iman's mother was good friends with her aunt, a relative with whom Waris once lived during her time in London.

In March 2005, Waris acquired Austrian citizenship. Besides Vienna, she also lives in Gdańsk, Poland.

Humanitarian work, awards and honours

In 1997, Waris abandoned her modeling career to focus on her work against female circumcision. That same year, she was appointed UN Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation. In 2002, she founded the Desert Flower Foundation in Vienna, Austria, an organization aimed at raising awareness regarding the dangers surrounding FGM. Waris followed that in January 2009 with the establishment of the PPR Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights’, an organization she founded along with French tycoon François-Henri Pinault (CEO of PPR) and his wife, Hollywood actress Salma Hayek. Waris has also started the Desert Dawn Foundation, which raises money for schools and clinics in her native Somalia, and supports the Zeitz Foundation, an organization focused on sustainable development and conservation.

Waris has received many prizes and awards for her humanitarian work and books including:

• Woman of the Year Award (2000) by Glamour magazine.
• Corine Award (2002) of the umbrella association of the German bookselling trade.
• Women's World Award (2004) from former President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev.
• Bishop Óscar Romero Award (2005) by the Catholic Church.
• Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (2007) from former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy.
• Prix des Générations (2007) by the World Demographic Association.
• Martin Buber Gold Medal from the Euriade Foundation (2008), founded by Werner Janssen in 1981.
• Gold medal of the President of the Republic of Italy (2010) for her achievements as a human rights activist.

One of the Somalian woman which is well know in world ..................reference wikipedia